State promises decision on maternity ward by May 31

Friday

May 25, 2012 at 2:00 AM

A decision on whether the Bon Secours Community Hospital maternity ward stays open or closes will come from the New York state Department of Health by the end of the month, according to an e-mail community activist Jim McMahon received from Keith J. McCarthy, acting director of the health department's Bureau of Project Management Division of Health Facility Planning.

Jessica Cohen

A decision on whether the Bon Secours Community Hospital maternity ward stays open or closes will come from the New York state Department of Health by the end of the month, according to an e-mail community activist Jim McMahon received from Keith J. McCarthy, acting director of the health department's Bureau of Project Management Division of Health Facility Planning.

McMahon and other concerned Port Jervis residents went to Albany in March to express their concerns to McCarthy and his colleagues about the hospital's application to close the ward.

The primary community concern is the difficulty of getting women in labor from Port Jervis to Orange Regional Medical Center in the Town of Wallkill to deliver, given the challenges of weather and lack of transportation.

Many in the community group said state officials listened attentively. But since then, McMahon and others have doubted the state's interest in their case, as Bon Secours reduced the number of beds in the maternity ward from eight to four, and staff at both Middletown Community Health Center and Bon Secours have referred women to Orange Regional for their deliveries.

McMahon wrote an angry e-mail to McCarthy accusing the state of allowing a "de facto closing" of the maternity ward.

Community activist Anne Horsham and others, saying they were frustrated with the silence of community officials, recently placed signs around Port Jervis announcing, "Bon Secours Maternity Unit is Open."

When Orange County Executive Edward Diana held a public forum in Port Jervis in April, civil rights attorney Michael Sussman asked him to have the county legal department file a lawsuit on behalf of Port Jervis citizens against Bon Secours, as services were discontinued without Department of Health approval. Diana agreed to take the matter to the legal department. But, a month later, Diana declined an interview on the matter.

Instead, his assistant, Orysia Dmytrenko, replied in an e-mail, "After last month's town hall meeting in Port Jervis, the County Executive asked the County Attorney to review the matter. The County Attorney's Office is currently doing so, but has yet to make a determination on whether the County should proceed past the concerns that the County has already raised with the New York State Department of Health regarding the maternity ward."

In response to the county's inaction, Sussman wrote, "Very few in government have the courage to take stands and then take action behind those stands. It's easy to talk, but harder to actually file the compelling legal case and make things happen in that or any other way."

At this week's Port Jervis Common Council meeting, Horsham asked the council to legally challenge the Department of Health if it approved the maternity ward closing.

Still, she expressed optimism about the impending decision. "They're taking action when people file complaints," she said. This week, she noted, Tricia Halpenny delivered her baby at Bon Secours, having filed a complaint with the Health Department when Bon Secours staff told her she could not register to deliver there.

Mayor Russ Potter, who said he sat next to McCarthy at the Albany meeting, was also hopeful.

"The commissioner was soft-spoken but matter-of-fact," Potter said. "He said the hospital can change the number of beds in the ward depending on supply and demand, as long as they don't close it down. I don't think pushing and prodding is the way to go. Educate the Health Department and let them do their job."